Jim Harper teaching at Polk Youth Institution (Photo:Bryson Pope/Echo Staff Photographer)

Rueben Little stands outside his classroom, patiently waiting for history class to begin.

The classroom is adorned with timeline posters of civil rights movements and dates chronicling the World Wars. Encyclopedias and world atlas books are situated on the shelves.

Little, 20, is a post-secondary education student. He has a syllabus, homework and exams. He accumulates credit hours just like any other college student. For Little, class usually ends about an hour just before lockdown.

“The more knowledge you get the more doors open for you,” Little said.

But Little does not take these classes on a traditional college campus. He takes them at a correctional facility.

Little, a High Point native, was a 15-year old ninth grader when he was arrested on drug-related charges and has been serving time for the last five years. He takes courses through the Youth Offenders Program at Polk Youth Institution in Butner.

In its 10th year, the Program was formed through an agreement between the North Carolina Department of Correction, and the University of North Carolina System. It was created to give inmates the opportunity to take college-level courses and receive transferrable college credits while serving time in a correctional facility.

NCCU associate history professor Jim Harper started teaching U.S. history last semester at Polk. He said teaching those like Little is an “opportunity” to help incarcerated males.

“I try to help these young men get a new start in life,” Harper said. “Education is one of the things I use to help them better themselves.”

When first presented with the idea to teach at Polk, Harper said he had no qualms about it but the safety issue crossed his mind.

“I didn’t know what kind of level of security it would be,” he said.

He said aside from the prison experience itself, education is an added alternative that motivates inmates to not return to Polk.

“This program is a good program to help these men to transition back to society,” said Harper, who plans on continuing to teach at Polk.

At Polk, students have class once a week if they are enrolled in one class and twice a week for two classes.

The 15-week semester schedule is similar to one at a traditional college. Students can not exceed two classes per semester. Classes last for three hours with a 15-minute break in between. A typical class size is 15 students.

For the last six years, Paulette Morrison-Danner has served as the program coordinator and student support coordinator for NCCU’s University College. She said when she came on board the program was already implemented and she just picked up from there.

“It’s actually like a partnership; it’s basically like a collaborative effort,” Morrison-Danner said. In addition to targeting incarcerated youth, she said the program was designed “to change lives through education.”

She also said once an inmate is released, the education they received will help them maintain in the outside world.

“You want them to come back productive and definitely changed,” Morrison-Danner said. “I think it’s a well-worth program.”

Morrison-Danner said the grant money that they receive is allocated to books for the classes, tuition for the students, computers, school supplies and pay for the professors. This school year, tuition was only $264.68 per semester. By the close of this semester, the program would have spent about $120,000.

“The program was established to provide post-secondary education,” said Kenneth Phillips, NCDOC director of the Youth Offender Program.

According to Phillips, the Program is funded through a federal grant from the U. S. Department of Education that is renewed every three years. For the current three-year period, the NCDOC division of prisons received about $1.5 million that was dispersed to the 16 constituent universities in the school system. Each period the grant amount is contingent upon the prison population.

Based on NCDOC statistics, 48 per cent of inmates that are eligible for the Program will be repeat offenders, but the number drops to 18 per cent for those who were involved in the Program prior to their release. Phillips said that when the offenders go through the Program their “cognitive and behavioral skills are bettered.”

UNC-Chapel Hill was the first school to participate in the Program. From there universities including UNC-Asheville, UNC-Charlotte, N.C. State University, East Carolina University and Fayetteville State University will have participated by next year. Each university is assigned to teach at one or more of the correctional facilities across the state.

In order to enroll in the program, inmates must meet certain criteria. They must be between the ages of 18 and 25, possess a high school diploma or GED and must be less than five years of completing their sentence.

Kaye Rogers, visiting assistant professor of instructional technology at NCCU teaches Computer Application I and II courses at Polk. Students learn computer programs and get instruction on formulas, spreadsheets and presentations with homework and tests just like her students at NCCU.

“It’s no different from what students have on campus,” she said.

Rogers said when Morrison-Danner approached her about teaching in the program, she feared going into a correctional facility because of the bad things she had heard and even seen on television.

“At first I was kind of contemplating whether or not I should do it,” she said. But that changed when she began her first day of teaching. From then until now, Rogers said her negative perception of prison life had changed, and she enjoys teaching at the facility. She said her students at Polk just want to learn, and she has never had any bad experiences there.

Upon release, Morrison-Danner said some inmates do make the choice to continue their education after being a part of the program. But the UNC system added questions devoted to criminal background information four years ago after a UNC-Wilmington student was killed. Curtis Dixon, who was convicted of the murder, gave false information about his criminal history when applying to UNCW.

“The question is, are they going to commit any crimes on campus,” Morrison-Danner said.

Almost three years ago, the UNC school board began asking applicants to give information about crimes that they have committed. If an applicant answers yes to committing a crime, they are then asked to detail that crime. From there, the application is sent to an admissions review board to see if the applicant is eligible for admission based on the nature and severity of the crime.

Morrison-Danner described the review process as “quite extensive”. She said different categories of the crimes range from fraud, sexual assault, physical harm and possession of a firearm. She also said when reviewing applicants with a criminal background, certain factors come into play including the ex-criminal’s credibility and whether or not they will be an on-campus resident.

“They want to finish their education but fearful of getting admitted to school because of their background,” Rogers said. “I tell them if you really want to, you can make it happen.”

According to Morrison-Danner, a past criminal history does not automatically deny one from being accepted and documents like reference letters can help the behalf of the applicant. But she said the safety of other students is primary.

“You have to think about the risk versus the opportunity, but they have admitted people that have answered ‘yes’,” Morrison-Danner said.

For Reuben Little the program is a first step. He expects to be released in seven months and aspires to attend barber school.